Ask an Expert: Should I Make My Child Pose for Photos?

Ann Gadzikowski

“Say cheese!” Britannica for Parents asked our featured photographer, Catherine Hilcove, how to handle children who do not want to have their picture taken. We also look at tricky issues of privacy and consent that relate to taking photos of children.

Now that smartphones are the norm, almost every parent has a camera in their hand 24/7. Children today are arguably more accustomed to having their picture taken than when most of us were children, but every child will likely experience a moment when they do not want their picture taken. If your child screams, “No! Don’t take my picture!” or hides their face from your camera, what should you do? Should you make them pose for the photo or just let it go?

We asked family photographer Catherine Hilcove about her experience taking photos of children and how she responds when she encounters a child who does not want to have their picture taken.

Hilcove said,
“I love doing school pictures at preschools, but I don’t make the children
smile. My end goal is to capture a full range of emotion. I’ll talk with each
child, have a conversation, and hopefully make them laugh. I’ll ask them about
their families, which makes them relax and get serious and thoughtful.”

Hilcove never forces a child to have their picture taken. “If a child is really upset, I’m not going to take it. They’ll have many other chances in their lives to get their photo taken. But often they just need some reassurance. It helps to have a familiar teacher sit with them, hold their hand. For little ones, it also helps to let them touch the camera.”

When asked about her favorite photos of her own children, Hilcove replied, “My favorite pictures of my own children are ones where they’re not smiling. I love a good serious kid picture. People don’t give children enough credit for their emotional complexity. Children can be quite thoughtful and serious. They have a lot going on in their heads and it doesn’t always have to be fun, fun, fun.”

“People don’t give children enough credit for their emotional complexity. Children can be quite thoughtful and serious. They have a lot going on in their heads and it doesn’t always have to be fun, fun, fun.”

Catherine’s tips for taking photos of children? Don’t force it. Engage in conversations that make them smile or make them think. And explore natural poses and expressions rather than the typical fake photo smile.

Online Privacy Issues

In this day and age, when so many parents and
educators are advocating for teaching children about consent and protecting their
privacy, isn’t it time to reexamine how we talk with children, especially older
children and teens, about taking their pictures?

Some
of the reasons children may not want their picture taken might be related to an
awareness that the photo could be posted online. “Sharenting” is now a thing.
It’s an approach to social media in which a parent overshares photos and
information about their child. Washington
Post columnist and parent Sarah Szczypinski describes her own
decision to not share images of her
child online in a piece titled “Kids
Deserve Privacy.” She quotes psychologist Eileen Kennedy-Moore who
observes, “I can’t think of any aspect of development that is helped by a
constant critical audience. Home needs to be a place where we don’t have to
present a particular image. We can just relax and be imperfect and loved.”

Teaching Consent

Asking
for a child’s permission to take their photo may be, in some interesting and perhaps
surprising ways, similar to the concept of sexual consent. In this time of the
#MeToo movement, along with troubling news stories about sexual abuse and child
pornography, many parents are looking for ways to teach children that giving
and receiving consent is an essential part of healthy human relationships.
Experts and educators advocate for beginning to talk to children about consent
when they’re very young, even preschool. Talking about consent with young
children is all about being in charge of your own body and respecting others’
decisions about their bodies. Asking permission to hug someone is an example of
a preschool-appropriate experience with consent.

Grace Tatter of the Harvard Graduate School of Education writes that teaching consent in preschool may not even include using the word consent. It can be taught simply by laying the groundwork for later learning by empowering children to express their emotions and to make age-appropriate autonomous decisions like what snack to eat or which chair to sit in.

The Bottom Line

So if your child does not want you to take her picture, try to find out why. She might not yet have the words to explain her feelings, but a conversation is a good place to start. Keep in mind that limiting what you post on social media might help make your child feel more open to pictures. Give choices when you can, but the bottom line is that there are a lot of things parents do to children without their consent, such as baths and dentist visits, and sometimes taking a picture of a scowling child is one of those things.